


The Next Time Around

by Hinn_Raven



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Family, Forgiveness, Gen, Minor Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Minor Julia Burnsides/Magnus Burnsides, Minor Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Reincarnation, TAZ Big Bang 2018, The Adventure Bang 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 08:16:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16446167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: They had earned their happy ending, even if there were a few bumps. But Jeffandrew decides that it might be time for the Seven Birds (and some friends) to have a second chance... A thousand years in the future. Reincarnated in this strange new world, they all have to find each other... And figure out why Lucretia can't remember anything.





	The Next Time Around

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my entry for the TAZ Big Bang! Hope you all enjoy! 
> 
> I was paired with the lovely jakebot, I'll link to their work hopefully soon! 
> 
> Special thanks to sroloc_elbisivni, my beta and cheerleader on this project.

_****_****Here’s the thing: they had a happy ending. They earned it.

No, it wasn’t perfect, and not everyone made it all the way to the end, but it was a _good_ ending. Jeffandrew was proud of it.

But...

There’s a bit of an energy, radiating from that world.

The Hunger is gone. The Light of Creation is safe.

But the Hunger happened because of human rage, despair, and helplessness. Without the Light, it might never grow to be as powerful or as awful as it did last time, but... it could happen again.

It _is_ going to happen again, and Jeffandrew even has an approximate date.

Officially, there’s nothing he can do about it. They’re hands off once again.

But...

Jeffandrew can do just _one_ thing.

A second chance, to the people who they owe, still. And if the chance just so happens to put them in the path of this new Hunger, well... it’s not like he intervened _directly_.

“So, seven reincarnation forms?” Lizbethany (the Trez Horny Boys had started a trend) says.

“Yes,” he says. “We’ll have to get the Raven Queen of that plane to sign off, of course, but...”

“Memory clauses,” she tilts her head. “If we want them to survive.”

They pause.

“If they’re going to remember, we might need a few more people,” Jeffandrew says delicately.

Lizbethany goes to the large pile of their equivalent of a filing cabinet and starts rifling through things. “We’ll need... Julia Waxman, Kravitz the Reaper—oh that’s going to be a lot of paperwork—and, ah, the kids? Angus McDonald, Mavis, Mookie?”

“Grab some of the Bureau of Balance files,” he says. “Johann, Carey, Killian, and Avi at least.”

“The Void Fish?”

“The Void Fish is an independent contractor, if they show up, it will be because they want to. Who else is starred as in need of a second chance?”

Lizberthany drops a stack of files onto his desk in response.

“That’s... a lot of names.”

“All victims of the Hunger and the Relics qualify under current terminology,” she says. “We’re going to have to narrow this down.”

“Right,” he says. “Well... let’s just get those first ones started, and then we can figure everything else out. We’re omniscient beings outside of the boundaries of time. We can make sure they’re all born at the right times to be around for... that.”

Lizbethany nods. “Do you think they’ll find each other?”

Jeffandrew laughs. “Oh, don’t worry. That’s the thing I’m _least_ worried about.”

* * *

 

Taako remembers when he goes to Neverwinter for the first time and sees the kickass statue of him, Merle, and Magnus that’s standing in the town square. Sure, it’s old as shit but it’s still got enough of a resemblance to drop-kick his brain back a thousand years or so.

It’s brutal, like drinking the ichor the second time around (third, technically, but who’s counting), because the last thing he remembers is holding Kravitz’s hand at Carey and Killian’s wedding, and the fact that he doesn’t remember anything else is _kind of horrifying_ and now he’s here, an elf, about a thousand goddamn years later, and he _didn’t grow up with a sister_.

Cuz he’s _Taako_ , y’know, from TeeVee, and the fact that he’d _forgotten_ again was spectacularly bullshit.

He’s supposed to have already picked his adult name for an elf but he fucking throws whatever bullshit he’d picked and goes back to Taako and so what if everyone thinks he’s ripping off himself, it’s _him_ , so he’s not infringing his own copyright.

And he _grew up without a sister._

Magic flows through his veins again, the kind of power he hadn’t had even moments ago. Lup’s absence _burns_ , but more than that, the others’ absence is burning too, because he’s _alone_. It had been hard enough to remember last time, when he’d at least had Magnus and Merle and Barry and Davenport and Angus and hell, even Lucretia, but now...

He’s standing in a town square, looking up at his own face carved in marble.

And he doesn’t know why he’s here or why he’s alone or even just... _why_?

He grew up without a sister.

He had never noticed, before this moment during this lifetime, how lonely he had been.

Taako goes back to school, because he needs a freaking degree in this world and he cooks. He writes down what he remembers and checks it against the fantasy internet (which is _amazing_ , he wishes that Fantasy Twitter had been around during the last time, he would have been a _sensation_ ) and while he’s pretty sure there are some accuracy problems, he _thinks_ he’s not imagining things.

He’s pretty sure he couldn’t imagine the feeling of the threads of light knitting him together again after a new cycle, or the way that kissing Kravitz had felt, or the way that the heat of two suns had felt against his skin. And he’s definitely more powerful than he’d been the day before going to Neverwinter. He’s levelled up _way_ too much for it to be explained by some sort of hallucination and looking in the mirror basically proves that, yeah, okay, this is _his_ face, so it’s not just some sort of weird Animus Bell Bullshit.

Taako graduates with as many fucking honors as he can rack in, because like _shit_ is he starting out his career in this world as a shitty wizard.

And then the second he’s free and qualified and all of that shit he goes looking for his goddamn _family_.

He goes to Neverwinter, cuz that’s where _he_ remembered, so he kind of figures the others might remember there too. He gets a job working in a restaurant and is rapidly out-classing his way to Head Chef, and in his free time, he looks for his family.

He finds Magnus first, volunteering at a dog shelter which Taako has been checking pretty regularly. He’s also been checking Churches of Pan and Temples of the Raven Queen and libraries and wood shops and local detective agencies and everything else he could think of. He’s alone, he’s been alone for _so long_ , no wonder Lucretia went all directory after her cycle alone, because Taako _feels_ it, feels a life alone and searching for answers that didn’t seem to be there.

But Magnus is here and the same-as-ever, younger, yeah, but no younger than when they’d left home on the Starblaster and they stare at each other for a long moment, in which Taako has to be afraid that Magnus doesn’t remember him, before Magnus grins. “Taako!”

And then the they’re hugging, and Taako doesn’t even care, because he’s not alone anymore.

* * *

 

Magnus watches a movie with Magnus Burnsides as a main character when he’s eighteen. Partway through the second act, he sits upright, and goes “Hey! I was _way_ cooler than that!”

And just like that, it’s him.

It’s strange, having another lifetime poured right into your head for the second time. But Magnus makes it work.

He quickly picks up carpentry classes at the Fantasy YMCA and declares a double major in Fighting and Rogue at the local community college. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but he has none of his tools or weapons, and yeah, he’s strong, but he can’t protect people like this.

He also works out.

A lot.  

After he gets his degrees, he goes to find his friends. Because, he figures, there’s no way any gods or God or JeffAndrew or whatever would arrange for just him to come back. Raven’s Roost is his first stop, and he only finds a booming city. It’s much bigger than when he’d last seen it. He finds a few plaques that say Magnus Burnsides, hero of Faerun, lived here a thousand years ago, but his house and school are gone, and he can’t find his own grave.

Is it morbid, that he kind of wishes he could?

The thing is, Magnus doesn’t remember anything that happened to him after Carey and Killian’s wedding. Fantasy Google is less than helpful on that subject; basically all of his friends except Taako cease to exist after the Day of Story and Song. Merle’s got some seventeen-times or so great-grandkids who still claim Earlship of Bottlenose Cove, and he finds a few ancient buildings that attribute their building to Lucretia of the Bureau of Benevolence, but really that’s about it. Taako’s School of Magic is still around, and so is Lucas’ school, but it’s been long enough for people to forget even an elf.

He and his friends are relics of the past, and they’ve been pretty well buried.

But they’re here now, and Magnus shrugs, says goodbye to Raven’s Roost once again, and keeps going.

He visits Bottlenose Cove and Taako’s School of Magic before he finally admits that, since he wasn’t reborn near Raven’s Roost, the others might not be where they should be either, and starts wandering from town to town, becoming a wandering adventurer.

It’s odd that he’s all alone, sure, but he picks up some odd jobs, throwing in with a local cleric or a scrappy sorcerer and sometimes a warlock with a mysterious past. He fights dragons and saves some local species of wolf from extinction and kind of burns down a small forest, but it’s _not his fault, okay_.

He finally makes his way to Neverwinter, and he just feels... tired. He says goodbye to the group he’s been travelling with, and gets a job with a local carpenter, who’s friendly and pleased with Magnus’s work.

Where are they? He thinks, sitting at the foot of a statue of Davenport. He can’t be alone here. He just needs to find them.

Taako, when he finds him, is alone. Lup’s not here, and Taako is... brittle, because of that.

Magnus isn’t sure what to do, besides immediately kidnap him to go on an adventure. The way he figures it, if they throw themselves into danger, one of the others is bound to come and help them out, right?

And at the very least, they’ll get some cash out of it.

Taako agrees to be kidnapped when he hears that part of the argument.

But he’s still pretty put out when Merle shows up and Zone of Truths the basilisk instead of, you know, _healing Taako_.

Magnus will take it, though.

* * *

 

If anyone asks, Merle remembered the first time he cast Zone of Truth the first time. Wait, no! The first time he went into a Temple of Pan, and all the plants started leaning towards him, begging him to tell them sweet nothings!  

Or the time that he met Pan in a wood, picking mushrooms, and his god smiled at him and told him the truth about Life, the Universe, and Everything!

Or...

Look.

He can’t exactly tell the guys that he remembered during his wedding day, when he looked into Hecuba’s face, panicked, looked over her shoulder, saw Maevis, and panicked even more, nearly throwing himself out the window before he remembered that he needs to stick around so that Mookie gets born at least and then he realizes that _that_ means he needs to get Hecuba to remember and he nearly throws himself out the window again.

He does, however, make it through the ceremony, and then he and Hecuba have a nice long conversation over drinks, and they very, _very_ awkwardly decide that whatever is responsible for this will probably make sure that Mookie is whatever baby they have, so they both tough it out until she gets pregnant, and then they very happily sign divorce papers and breathe mutual long sighs of relief.

Merle gets split custody this time at least, which he can live with.

Maevis hasn’t remembered yet—she knows, at least theoretically, that her parents are reincarnations, but every time Merle tries to talk to her about the adventures they’d gotten up to, she gives him a strange look, like she’s not quite sure if he’s joking, and so he’s decided to table that conversation until she’s fifty or so.

He goes off to go find the guys, Lup, and Lucretia after that, cuz if his wife and kids got brought back too, there’s no way the rest of the gang isn’t around.

Of course, he doesn’t find them.

He finds Angus McDonald first.

* * *

 

Angus McDonald is fairly sure he didn’t die at age twelve, but he can’t remember anything past Carey and Killian’s wedding before his new life in this current reincarnation.

His parents are... okay, he supposes, but Angus really isn’t used to being parented. They’re very protective and very nice, but Angus is a _detective_ , and they don’t get it when he tries to explain to them that he’s the world’s greatest detective _and_ a wizard and so he’s perfectly safe chasing murderers and dealing with the Thieves’ Guild and smugglers and pirates.

Angus suspects whoever arranged for this whole reincarnation thing thought they were being helpful by giving him parents instead of just his Grandfather but the fact is that Angus _has_ plenty of parental figures in his life, he just needs to go _find_ them.

He loves his new parents, he really does, but they don’t understand him, and it’s really very frustrating for all of them, because one day Angus got out of bed with several levels in wizard and an even better detective, and none of them know what to do about this.

Angus _should_ probably stick it out, grow up, and then go off and live his life of adventure, but careful fantasy googling has unearthed the existence of most of his friends, and Angus _is_ thirteen years old, and he figures he’s due for some teenage rebellion.

So he leaves his parents a very nice letter explaining the situation and then he packs his detective’s kit and goes off to find his friends.

He runs into Merle—he was the easiest to find because Angus and Maevis are already friends through the FantasyWeb and he realized who she was pretty quickly.

“Hello sir!” Angus says cheerfully. “Maevis says you got the divorce finalized! Mind if I tag along?”

Merle groans loudly. “Of _course_ it’s you,” he says.

And then the two of them set off towards Neverwinter, where Angus knows that Taako and Merle are holed up.

“And the others?”

“Davenport and the Director aren’t on WizBook,” Angus says. “But Lup and Barry are students at MagicIvy College, so that’ll be our next stop.”

“Right,” Merle says. “Wait, what’s WizBook?”

Angus tries to explain, but Merle isn’t really interested, so Angus instead asks him questions about his reincarnation, because he’s honestly not sure how this happened, and that’s a very important mystery for them to solve.

He still hasn’t figured it out by the time they meet Magnus and Taako, but he’s starting to get a few ideas. He’ll see where this goes.

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans really should be better about this amnesia thing by now, but this time... he didn’t _remember_ he was amnesiac, so he figures he has a bit of an excuse?

Barry, in this world, starts studying necromancy at the age of five, reading his textbook under the covers at night. He learns to play the piano and takes a level in bard in college before getting sidetracked and taking courses in cleric, warrior, rogue, and finally, wizardry.

He takes levels in all his other courses, of course, and picks up a level in druid for good measure during the summer semester.

“Barry,” one of his advisors says to him when the two of them are trying to hammer out his four-five-maybe-six-year plan to get him to graduate with his credentials. “You can’t learn _everything_ , you know.”

“That’s just because I’d need to go to a different college to take warlock levels,” Barry mumbles to himself, trying to see if he can squeeze in a class about draconic sorcery into his schedule. Yes, you need genetic potential to be a sorcerer, but that doesn’t mean he can’t learn the _theory_.

He’s so busy learning everything he possibly can about every possible class that it takes him an embarrassingly long time to take his mandatory gen-ed history course.

One day, right before Candlenights, he walks into class to see that the teacher has the IPRE logo up on the projector and Barry trips right over his own feet and knocks himself out on the nearest desk.

He wakes up in the cleric’s office with a raging headache and a lot of extra memories.

“Huh,” he says, staring at the ceiling and mentally sorting through all the high-level spells he knows.

To celebrate, he goes out and buys himself a jean jacket, buys an ironic IPRE pin and sticks it to the lapel.

And then he goes into his advisor’s office, says he’s going to graduate at the end of the semester with his degree in wizardry and a minor in bard instead of staying another two years to finish getting his cleric’s licence, she bursts into tears with joy, and then he sets out to find his friends.

The first thing he does is to check the Evocation Library.

He finds Lup, standing on a stool, a bright red peacoat thrown over her shoulders, her hair cascading down her back, arguing with a very angry looking librarian about using magic near the books.

Then the two of them make eye contact and she hops off the stool and runs into his arms.

“There you are,” she says, pulling back to smile at him. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

* * *

 

Lup doesn’t know how Taako _stood_ it, honestly, living a full life without her.

Doing it once without him was agonizing, even if she didn’t remember until she was a hundred and something.

Lup figures out how to burn something so hot it produces black glass, and the next thing she knows, she’s having a panic attack in the class and _fuck_ , she remembers, and she basically books it right to the Library to try to figure out what the _fuck_ is going on.

That library doesn’t have any answers, so she goes to every single library on MagicIvy campus until she ends up right back where she started, frazzled and stressed and angry and _scared_.

So of course, that’s when Barry shows up.

She kisses him so many times and it’s weird, because they’re not liches anymore, not even Reapers, and they’re both so utterly _mortal_ that it’s buck-wild, but Lup honestly doesn’t care, because it’s _Barry_ , her _husband_ , and she’s _missed him_.

She tries to drag him back to her dorm to get reacquainted properly but he stops to stare at a bulletin board full of lecturers, and honestly Lup loves how nerdy he is, but _now_? Babe?

She voices these thoughts and instead of kissing her again he just points.

Davenport is a guest lecturer on campus next week.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“... we better get front row tickets.”

Davenport sighs when he sees them and turns his coat red for the rest of the show to prove to them that _yes_ , he remembers, _no_ , Lup, you _can’t get on stage and yell my name_.

He teleports her back out into the audience when she tries, which she thinks is _cheating_.

“I’m your roadie!” Lup yells when she finds him backstage.

“You’re not my roadie—”

“No, I totally am, look, I’m dressed for it—”

“Lup, a t-shirt that says “Crew” does not actually make you a roadie—”

“Barry’s your manager, right babe? It was a whirlwind romance, totally forbidden—”

“You haven’t let go of his hand except to try to climb onto the stage, no one will believe that—”

“Barry graduates next week and I’m too cool for school, Cap, let’s blow this stand!”

Davenport can’t help but smile at that. “Alright,” he agrees. “We head out after graduation.”

“Yes!” Lup punches the air with the hand that’s holding an umbrella handle instead of Barry’s hand.

“Did you recreate the Umbra Staff?” Davenport demands, squinting at her.

She looks remarkably nervous all of a sudden, hiding it behind her back.

“... no.”

“Barry?”

The two of them exchange glances.

“RUN BARRY, HE’S ONTO US!”

“HE’S NOT OUR CAPTAIN ANY MORE HE CAN’T TELL US WHAT TO DO!”

“Lup! Barry! Get back here!”

* * *

 

Of course, before Barry can graduate, Angus McDonald shows up, the Trez Horny Boys in tow, and Taako and Lup nearly set the school on fire as part of their reunion.

Davenport really wishes he was surprised.

“Who else is there?” He asks, as the seven of them gather around the table.

Angus perks up. “Well, now that I’ve found you, sir, there’s really only one person unaccounted for.”

“Who?” Davenport asks, but deep down, he thinks he already knows.

“The Director.”

“Yeah,” Taako says slowly. “But is it like, just us?”

“Oh no, sir, Kravitz is here too! He’s in Goldcliff in the Raven Queen’s Temple, he’s our next stop. I think we can pick up Carey and Killian there too.”

Taako looks up, delighted.

* * *

 

Kravitz has been having a panic attack for approximately most of his life because _he’s alive again, and that’s very much against the rules_.

His mother— _he has a mother_ —thinks it was a nervous breakdown that caused Kravitz to drop out of bard college and join the Temple of the Raven Queen. Kravitz supposes she’s not _wrong_ exactly, but also he figures he needs to hedge his bets against her wrath because _he didn’t mean to_.

The Queen hasn’t answered any of his queries though, so he’s currently a very low level bard and acolyte and he’s very stressed about this whole situation.

His boyfriend, fellow reapers, and all their friends and family showing up at the Temple is—well it’s not entirely unexpected but he’s still bewildered by the situation.

The Grand Cleric smiles at him approvingly when he goes to tell her that he’s going to go be a wandering bard with his friends for a while, and gives him a pamphlet about Paladin levels.

“Just in case,” she says cheerfully, sounding a bit too much like the  Raven Queen for comfort, and then she shuts the door in his face.

So yes, Kravitz is still very stressed about his whole situation, but kissing Taako while they’re both alive again _is_ very nice, he has to admit.

* * *

 

Julia Waxmen-Burnsides was dead. And then she wasn’t.

She’s a bit fuzzy on what happened in between, but her dreams are full of a silver ocean.

So once she remembers the whole “past life” thing, she grabs her hammer and takes off to find her goddamn husband because nope, not gonna even _think_ about the possibility of that not being the case, because otherwise she’s going to have a goddamn breakdown and she does _not_ have time for this bullshit.

She meets a very nice girl named Carey and her wife Killian and the two of them are also looking for a guy—Carey’s best friend, apparently—so they figure they’ll team up.

It’s not until they get to Rockport and Julia sees Magnus across the crowd before yelling his name and tackling him for the best kiss of her lives that they realize they have been, in fact, looking for the same person the whole time.

Not that Julia’s complaining.

* * *

 

The six of them start looking for Lucretia in earnest, now. They don’t really know how to start; Lucretia is pretty good at avoiding notice.

Lup hits up a publishing house and starts looking for published authors and ghost writers who could possibly be her.

“Rica Lute is an anagram for Lucretia,” Barry says, flipping through a fantasy phonebook.

“Lucretia isn’t a bard, why would she have the last name Lute?” Merle points out reasonably.

“Curia Let?”

“Barold. I love you deeply. You’re like a brother to me; a weird, denim-wearing brother who, in fact, is kind of my brother-in-law. Please stop showing off your weird anagram fetish, it’s making me extremely uncomfortable. There’s way too many letters involved to be sexual, and while I _recognize_ you’re the denim man...”

“It’s not a _fetish_!”

“You’re just mad because the only anagram for Taako is Oak At,” Lup says, because she is a _traitor of a sister_.

“There isn’t even an anagram for Lup! Don’t be ridiculous, why would I _care_ —”

“Lucretia wouldn’t be using an anagram,” Davenport interrupts. “She either remembers, in which case she’s looking for us, or she doesn’t, in which case she’d be using whatever name her parents in this time gave her.”

Magnus lets out a gasp. “You guys, I have a very important announcement.” They all turned to him. He looked up at them solemnly, holding out the touch screen for them all to see. “I just found an anagram generator. We could have _infinite codenames_.”

Lup tackles Magnus to grab the fantasy iPad from him, and then cackles. “Banal Beers Jury!”

“You act like any name could be worse than _Barry Bluejeans_ ,” Merle points out reasonably.

“Banal. Beers. Jury.”

“Alright, I’ll concede. Okay, do me next.”

“Sure thing, my man. Uh, let’s see... Lech Rich Germ Huh.”

Merle lets out the most loud and delighted sounding noise they’ve heard from him in a long time.

* * *

 

Angus finds the Director by accident.

It’s kind of shameful, honestly, but one day he’s just at the library, attempting to piece together his own personal history after Carey and Killian’s wedding, and he looks at the woman behind the counter, and... there she is.  

“Miss?”

She looks at him, over elegant silver spectacles, and frowns.

“Can I help you?”

His heart plummets. “You... don’t recognize me?” _All_ the others had remembered. How come she hadn’t?

“I’m sorry, have we met?”

“I’m—Miss Lucretia?”

She frowns deeper. “I’m sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone else.” But it’s _her voice_ , and her long, silver hair, and her face is younger, but Angus still recognizes her, but...

She doesn’t recognize him.

“Oh,” Angus says quietly. “I’m—I’m sorry, miss.” And then he runs out of the library, leaving the books behind him, mind swirling with thoughts that don’t make sense.

* * *

 

Angus, despite claiming not to have it, eventually gives up Lucretia’s address after a few macaroon bribes and some glares. Taako knows his boy, who absolutely would not have been able to stop himself from researching her and possibly following her home, and so, armed with this knowledge, he goes to track her down.

He knows they need her, that’s the thing.

Oh, the others are on and on about how if she doesn’t remember they can’t force her, they should leave her alone and let her come to them, but that’s so _dumb_ , Taako is over it.

Taako _hates_ that they need her, on some level. But they fucking _do_ , because like it or not, she’s _family_ , and things are great and all, but nothing’s right, and he _knows_ it’s because the others fucking miss her, even if he doesn’t.

Lucretia’s living in a shitty apartment but Taako knows better than to just break down the door. Abjuration _sounds_ like a school for wimps but Taako knows that Lucretia can get _creative_ when it comes to the wards on her doors. The quicksand hallucination doesn’t have anything on the time that breaking into her room turned Magnus into a chicken.

“Lucretia!” He yells, kicking the door. “Lucretia! Open the fucking door and face me like a woman, Lucretia! I mean, I know you don’t remember and shit and while it’s pretty fucking good karma that you’re the one having memory issues this time around, but like, my dude, you totally owe me like, a trillion times over and so you’re gonna open this door and we’re gonna go _be a fucking family_.”

The door is pulled open abruptly, and Lucretia is standing there, her white hair pulled back into immaculate braids which are then twisted into a knot on top of her head. It’s slightly lopsided and she’s in pajamas, because, well, it’s five AM and he probably just woke her up.

“What are you _talking_ about, Taako?” She demands, and for a moment Taako grins because he’s _won_ and then he realizes what she’s said.

“You fucking remembered this whole time!”

Lucretia shifts guiltily. “Yes.”

“You pretended you didn’t know us!”

Lucretia turns and walks inside. Taako follows her, slamming the door behind him. “What the _fuck_ , Lucretia?”  

 The studio apartment is cramped but tidy, because it’s Lucretia. There are bookshelves crammed with books of all sorts—history books, romance novels, magical theory texts. There’s a tank with a content looking turtle munching on a lettuce leaf.

There’s no art on the walls. There’s no journals stacked on the bedside table or on the countertops. There’s no inkwells or quills or even ballpoint pens anywhere to be seen. There’s no dog bowls or fish tanks and a quick glance inside of the open closet reveals a complete lack of any shades of blue or red.

It doesn’t look like a place where Lucretia would live at all.

Lucretia flips the switch on an electric kettle. “You’re all better off without me Taako, and you know it.”

“So what, you fake amnesia?” Taako scowls at her.

Lucretia shrugs. “Tea?”

“Fuck, _no_.”

“I’ve got hot chocolate mix.”

Taako nearly cracks, but like _shit_. “Like, okay, first of all, how dare you ever offer me anything in a kitchen that you’ve made, don’t think I’ve forgotten the time you set _water_ on _fire_. Second off, and, okay, maybe I should have started off with this one. I’m kind of tired, my priorities aren’t where they oughta be, that’s fucking _rude_ to fake amnesia to avoid a conversation.”

“Taako,” Lucretia sets down the cup she’s holding. “Have you ever looked up what happened to us?”

Taako hesitates, because _yeah_ he’s googled himself, but like, mostly him and Lup. Magnus made them watch the shitty made-for-TV special about the Hunger invasion, and there was a brief flash across the screen about what all of them had done afterwards.

“You founded the like, Bureau of um... Banality? Blasphemy? Blackmail? Wait, no, um. Bureaucracy? Hang on, I’ve _got this_ , don’t give me a hint.”

A small smile is tugging on the corner of Lucretia’s lips for a moment.

Lucretia rips open a bag containing her tea, puts the teabag in the cup, and then proceeds to shred the paper bag into smaller pieces. “Lucretia did go on to found a new agency,” she agrees. “The Director died in the invasion.”

Taako squinted at her. “I think Kravitz would’ve mentioned that. Like, he cares about that sort of thing. Not that I’m judging, but like, that seems like something he’d have mentioned.”

Lucretia pours the water over the tea, not meeting his eyes. “According to most historians,” Lucretia says. “The Director was the founder of the Bureau of Balance. She discovered the truth about the artifacts, decided the Seven Birds were monsters, and cruelly wiped all of their memories. She is remembered as a villain, who caused the deaths of untold thousands when the Hunger arrived.” She takes the teabag out and puts it in the sink, letting the silence hold for a moment. “She was killed in the invasion, and Lucretia, the Journal Keeper, cast the spell to save the world.”

Taako stares at her.

“They separated me out, Taako,” she says. “The villain of the story and Lucretia. I’m—Taako, I know what I am, and what I did, and I—there is nothing forgivable about what I did. I was so... I screwed up so badly, I hurt so many people, that they had to create _two_ of me so they could give the story a happy ending.”

“Yeah well, um, that’s pretty fucked up. I really don’t know what to say to that. But uh, let’s focus on the fact that you _did_ save the day, and that, you know, the others miss you, so you should get over yourself and come to Lup and Barry’s wedding.”

“I can’t.”

Taako stops and stares at her. “What?”

“Taako... it’s better this way,” she says. “You were right. I took everything from you. I don’t—I don’t _deserve_ to be a part of this. What I did—” She slumps into one of the chairs. “I’m sorry, Taako.”

Taako’s hands ball into fists. “Yeah, well, great. Now come on, Lup’s got a bridesmaid dress with your name on it, and you’re going to apologize to Angus for _lying to him_.”

“No.”

“... what?”

“No,” Lucretia says again. “Taako I’ve—I’ve had a lifetime to think this over. I’ve done far too much damage, and I don’t—you all _deserve_ to not have to deal with that. I’ve hurt all of you, and we both know you’d be so much happier if you never had to see me again.”

“What, so you’re deciding that for all of us? Thanks, _Madame Director._ ” She flinches like he slapped her, but he doesn’t care.   

“Taako, don’t pretend you want me there!” She turns on him, her eyes flashing. “We both know that’s not true. After everything I did...”

“You’re full of shit,” Taako says. “Who fucking _cares_ what a bunch of nerds in libraries think about you? _You’re_ the one who casted that stupid bubble spell and saved the world... plane... galaxy... _everything_. Not some sort of weird manifestation of only the good parts of yourself!”

“Taako...”

“Whatever, wallow in your guilt and misery, see if I care. I’m going to go make sure Angus knows that he didn’t do anything wrong, you’re just being a JERK. Again. And your invitation is revoked.”

The door slams behind him and Taako tells himself that his eyes aren’t wet.

* * *

 

Lucretia remembers when she’s thirteen years old and in class. They’re going through ancient history, and the teacher starts droning on about the important dates for the Hunger Invasion and the Relic Wars.

Lucretia stares down at her textbook, where there’s a famous portrait of the Seven Birds; one of only a handful of images that exist of all of them, and she thinks to herself _I painted that_.

Because she did.

The next day she quietly asks her parents to transfer her out of Taako’s Amazing School of Magic. They’re confused but agree, and she goes to public school instead, learning magic as an elective.

She can’t bring herself to burn her childhood journals from this time around, instead hiding them in her closet and refusing to ever write again. She turns down offers to write for the school newspaper, eschews all creative writing classes. Her essays for class are careful and precise and she’s complimented on her abilities, but she refuses to write at all, outside of what’s necessary. She doesn’t paint either, doesn’t even doodle in the corners of her notebooks, although it’s sometimes an agony to make sure of that.

She avoids aquariums and all forms of fish, she avoids dogs. She doesn’t look at the stars, if she can help it.

She tries to live her life like she would if she had never remembered her past life. She goes to school and gets a degree. She writes her thesis in history about the heroism of the Seven Birds and gets criticized for leaving out Lucretia. She becomes a librarian and keeps her head down.  

She thinks about all of this as she sits in her apartment, staring after Taako, her eyes full of tears and her heart breaking.

“It’s for the best,” she reminds herself.

_“What, so you’re deciding that for all of us? Thanks, **Madame Director**.”_

She wavers, for a moment.

She supposes the others deserve to hear her apology from her personally.

She gets to her feet and grabs her staff.

She raises it in the air, and she teleports to Taako’s side.

“FUCK!”

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” Taako says, glaring at her.

She smiles faintly at that.

“You changed your mind?”

“... You were right,” she says. “I can’t make this decision for them. Or for you.”

Taako glances at her. “Growing up without Lup _sucks_ ,” he tells her. “I did it again this time.”

“Taako—”

“This one’s not on you,” Taako says. “But it _sucks_. So like. Don’t do it again.” He shrugs and the two of them keep walking.

They’re not find, Lucretia thinks. Fine might be out of reach forever, shattered the moment that Lucretia had wrapped Taako’s childhood up into a roll of paper, a life without a sister, and fed it to Fisher. What they once had is gone, destroyed by her own hand.

But they’re getting better.

And that is its own gift.

Taako leads her to a large house, and he kicks open the door with a flourish—taking lessons from Magnus, she thinks fondly.

“Hey! Guess who your boy found?”

Lucretia steps into the house, full of warmth and light, and she sees her family, gathered around a large table.

She smiles, tentatively.

“Hello,” she says, only moments before she is bodily tackled by her family, all of them shouting for joy.

* * *

 

**_Epilogue_ **

“So, they’re all together?”

“Mostly, I think we’ve got some more on the edges, but they’ll find their way there.”

“Will it be enough?”

“Do you see that, Lizbethany? They _forgave_ her. That kind of bond between people? Oh, the Hunger doesn’t stand a chance.”

The two of them settle down, and prepare to watch the show.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed! Comments are love, or, if you want, you can find me on Tumblr at [secretlystephaniebrown](http://secretlystephaniebrown.tumblr.com), where I yell about various fandoms, design character sheets for TAZ characters, and write.


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